


The Only Way Out is Up

by sharklion



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: M/M, Synchro AU, ygoshipolympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 23:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4078615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharklion/pseuds/sharklion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The same as it's always been.  From the Common slums, onwards— the only way out was ever up.  He gets off his bike, and takes Reiji's hand in his own as the platform reaches the final stop.</p>
<p>Hostageship Synchro AU.  Written for Ygoshipolympics prompt rooftops + marble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Way Out is Up

The brand was bright and perfect below his mouth— too perfect to be mistaken for anything other than what it was. Especially not on Yuto, not just a commons brat but a commons brat _orphan_. If other kids had bullied him with a highlighter, they would have marked up his whole face. Kids never had any subtlety. The circle had to be from adults. It was only rotten adults that would make a mockery of the whole business— that they could given him something so small and have it be so big of a deal.

The marker was the real thing.

Six months they hadn't seen him, and he came back with this. It changed everything. 

Shun's fists were balled at his side, and his teeth gritted as Ruri held Yuto's trembling shoulders to get a better look. 

"Who did this!?" Shun knew the answer— Security— but he meant _specifically_. Was it the one cited them for having _stolen goods_ , because the cards they had their hands on was too good for scum like them to have bought on their own and then took them for himself? The one that bore a grudge because their bad timing getting away while she was on duty once screwed up an offer for promotion? Or was it someone new on their turf— it didn't matter, really. Security and the city they served were rotten to the core, if he found the wrong one they doubtless had it coming. When Yuto failed to answer him, he snarled more than asked. "Yuto! Answer me!"

"This isn't your business." Yuto wouldn't look him or Ruri in the eyes, staring at her right ear.

"Fine! If you don't tell me, I'm going to hunt them down myself." He turned on his heel to march off, when Ruri spoke.

"Oh, well then. Before you go," Ruri smiled bright and deceptively cheerful, pointing a finger at her cheek, tapping beneath the corner of her eye. "What do you think about me getting one on each cheek? One for each of you! It might be cute if we all match. And then you'll even have company during your sentence."

"What— Ruri! Don't even think about it—!" his protective anger was cut off by his sister yelling back.

"Oh, so it's all right for you but not for me? Shun, what do you _think_ will happen if you attack Security?! So don't _you_ even dare!" Hands on her hips, glaring up at her brother, her irritation worked more than well enough as a deterrent— Ruri was serious, of course. She always was. She'd grown up with him and Yuto, and made good on her threats often enough Shun didn't dare write them off. Without softening her stance or voice a bit, she told him, "Don't be so selfish! Like heck I'm leaving without you."

He could never argue against Ruri and win. He turned back around to face them, already defeated but unwilling to admit it, and begrudgingly said, "Worry about if we'll get to leave at all."

"I'll start saving money from the factory." More than used to their confrontations, Yuto smiled at him from behind Ruri. There wasn't anymore reason for him to bother with school. With his marker, the job he had before his arrest was the best he could hope to get.

"We're going to need more than that paltry sum." Shun told him, walking back towards his sister, as she smiled her victor's smile and laced her hands with his.

"Then it's good that he's starting early," Ruri said, and leaned her head back, looking up, and Shun followed her line of sight. Up, to the rooftops of alley above, and beyond that: the bright city lights of the towers, the roads, up and up to the tops of the Tops, her mouth slightly parted. Like she could taste the dust of a road stretched ahead of her, with an end she thought she could someday reach.

It was then that she pulled him forward, and they started walking.

\---

When Ruri went missing, after fights or if they get separated at shelters on rare nights when it's too cold for them to stay anywhere else, the shortest route to finding her again was to look up— she stayed in one place, high as she could get and still see him coming. It was advice that came from when their parents were still with them, and had once told them not to move if they were lost. They had listened, seriously, to the instructions: to find a safe spot first, then stay put. 

Now, it was hard for them to consider anywhere "safe", but rooftops were empty enough to come close. From the roof of an apartment building he'd scaled, Shun scouted the streets below with the circles exhaustion left beneath his eyes deep as the City was tall.

A week Ruri had been missing.

It was longer than they've been separated before, and he knew Ruri wouldn't play damsel that long, sitting and waiting for him. But he didn't know what else to do. Keeping watch on their usual hideouts felt too much like waiting, and waiting felt too much like doing nothing at all. He couldn't keep still, even as his body complained of fatigue, of too many hours of missed sleep and meals.

He had Yuto keep an eye out on their place, to check in before and after his factory shifts for sign of Ruri, and scouted for higher ground. Five days of it and he scouted out a transmission tower: from the top it was too high to see anything on the ground, but it brought him up near enough to the roads that he could see the billboards, the screens and broadcasts that city that _wasn't_ slums got to watch.

Mostly there were ads, mind-numbing and loathsome, products he could never even _imagine_ affording, but interspersed were the bulletins on crime and _that's_ what Shun focused on. The breaking news came with warrants and video clips of crimes, followed by their celebrated arrests, with video clips of them being dragged off and photographs of their faces marked up, after. 

Every twenty minutes his gut tensed up, anticipation and dread followed always by relief and disappointment. 

Until, near midnight on the seventh day of his sister being gone— it wasn't even a crime report. It was Melissa Claire's broadcast: _entertainment_. He considered climbing down, a short rest from his vigil, but then he saw it—

His sister's face.

Her clothes were different (a school uniform. the Kurosaki siblings didn't— couldn't— go), her hair (bright pink, in pigtails held with jeweled ties he could tell from one look would have cost Yuto a month's earnings), her eye color (blue, to match her hair ties), but it didn't _matter_. Her face he'd know anywhere, even if he didn't recognize the unshadowed expression she was wearing at all. The girl on television looked happier than he could ever remember Ruri being. The closest he'd seen was when she talked about her dreams, but her ambition was an empty stomach and she'd always looked so hungry— the girl on screen looked like satisfaction was something she'd tasted personally.

If she hadn't promised him they'd leave together, he would have let her go. Ruri deserved to make it out. But this wasn't something Ruri would have done, not willingly, not ever. Not if she could still smile the way the camera captured her now. The girl on screen's face wasn't right, like Yuto's since the marker— unmistakable but infinitely wrong.

Glinting at her uniform lapel was a golden LDS pin, and the girl whose face was and was not Ruri's shook hands with a man with red-rimmed glasses. Then the screen went dark. The broadcast was over. He looked back down— he no longer had a reason to stand vigil— as it resumed playing its ad programming.

The image of the LDS pin, the smile that wasn't his sister's, and the face behind red rimmed glasses smiling too burned clear in his mind.

He'd seen him before.

\---

If you were breathing, you knew Leo Corp. More than an empire, they were a _monopoly_. There were no borders to LDS: the schools, the tech, the cards and their influence was everywhere. Even the poorest commons kid had seen the logo somewhere, printed on the back of their second-hand decks, or on the D-Wheels of patrolling security.

And it was the slums that knew best Akaba Reiji, oldest son of Akaba Leo. The tops got the media snapshot of him: the prodigy duelist, the young businessman, following in his parents' footsteps. 

A snapshot that cut out the name of his business: Underground Dueling.

It was a truth that was found in back-alley entrances to warehouses and broken-down buildings, officially condemned. His rings were all marked by frames of flickering neon, over a window with a loose board, a "locked" door. Entrances. Reiji's mark kept Security at bay, and kept crowds and desperate duelists in the market for cash or a one-way-ticket to death's door coming, when they knew where to look. 

"Kurosaki." 

That Reiji remembered his name still was anything _but_ flattering, but Shun kept his anger locked tight. "Akaba Reiji. I want to talk."

"Very well. You may speak as you wish." Reiji waited, but Shun stayed silent, his eyes pinned to Reiji's guard. Reiji didn't follow his pointed gaze, but nodded after a minute. "Your goal is a private audience. . . In that case, Nakajima, you are relieved of your current duty of guarding me. Oversee the duels in my absence.

"Sir." He nodded agreement.

Shun didn't need to be able to see the guard's eyes behind his glasses to catch the stiffness to the motion, but Nakajima didn't so much as twitch to stop them as Reiji led him up a ladder in a wrecked elevator shaft, to the rooftop. The shaft door was left cracked open, and they passed through it to stand in the shadow of the gold city lights from up above. From below came the metal rattle of engines through the shattered skylight, and did nothing to muffle the noise. The distance the roof put between them and the rest of the racket was Shun's only insurance that he and Reiji wouldn't be overheard. 

Akaba considered him a complete non-threat, to comply this much, this easily. It was the arrogance bred into him by the tops, and it was a scalding irritant. The only thing that kept it in check was the knowledge that Akaba had _earned_ some scraps of it— his dueling was competent, and he was capable of taking care of himself. If his sister hadn't been at stake, he could have kept his voice smooth as he accused him. "I _know_ what you're doing."

"I should hope so." His voice was so disinterested in Shun's blackmail threat that he was almost amused. "Only eight months have elapsed since you last took the stage here."

Shun's face reddened, and he spat out a clarification. " _Sponsoring a commons!_ Did you think I wouldn't recognize my sister's face!?" 

With one hand Akaba pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, blocking Shun's view of his mouth. "That broadcast was not transmitted to be shown in the slums. You're admitting to exceeding the boundaries of where people like you are allowed, by leveling that accusation."

"So you're calling _security_?" Even as his eyes narrowed, the corners of his mouth edged upwards— if Reiji had any plans on using them, he'd be busting his own operation. There was no danger of Reiji being detained, but his customers and duelists would not be fast returning.

As he moved his hand down from the bridge of his nose, Shun could see Reiji face was passive. He wasn't put off by Shun calling his bluff. "That would conflict with my current aims. But before that. . . let me clarify yours. You came to me motivated by the broadcast, in search of the girl most likely. But you know you would never be allowed to reach her, with your status, and you realize my connection to her."

"Get to the point." Reiji hadn't deduced incorrectly.

"You want my aid. But I have a difficult time believing you would expect this transaction to come free of cost."

The city was built on zero-sum games, you won and you can take but giving things for _free_ was the behavior of a fool. Even the youngest of children knew that. He scoffed, instead of replying. 

"As expected. Then I will ask: how far are you willing to go for her?"

Shun stayed still as a wax doll, though he felt he might spark with anger at any moment. It was a loaded question— if he answered with _everything_ Reiji could take him for all he was worth and he would have nothing left to bargain with. Anything lower than that could have the stakes raised, as a _challenge_ to test exactly how much Ruri was worth to him. Answering here was a trap. His eyes locked with Akaba's, as he stared him down.

Akaba looked away first, turning around back to the route they took up— leaving. He was leaving.

Shun gritted his teeth and answered. "Words are cheap."

Reiji turned back to him and in the dim, up here away from the street lamps and in the shadow of the upper city Shun couldn't see what expression he was making but his apprehension was a stone dropped into gut as Akaba spoke. "They are. Then it will work like this: fulfill my conditions, and I will do all you ask."

"Your conditions?!" Shun demanded, but Akaba turned away again. This time, not the way they came— another ladder to another rooftop, higher above. 

As sure as if he shackled his wrists, he had no choice but to follow.

\---

In the high winds and cold air Reiji's breath was a burn against his skin. Shun breathed out and added his own air to it in a burst of ragged flame, like in this cold dead world the two of them alone had the power of the inferno. The lights here were off.

He can't imagine this was the promised paradise of the Tops. He had fought spoiled rich brats, fallen from grace, before. Their strength was never cold like steel and iron, it was desperate, like his own, but unhoned. No, this was something else. This dead part of the city he never knew about. Because from below everything above is the same— out of reach and another man-made eclipse to leave them starveling in the shadows. It wasn't just the cold that made his hair stand on end here.

If turning away didn't mean that his voice would be lost to the howling of the wind, he would have. Instead he had no choice but to draw in close to Reiji's heat to be heard and accuse him. "What is this?!"

"Context to my current aims." The scarf Reiji never removed which had always, before now, seemed like a ridiculous affectation wound red around his neck, as Reiji threaded it to wrap Shun too. Akaba had no sense of personal space and it was only because he's _freezing_ and that if he moved Akaba's words would be lost in the gale that he accepted the gesture. "It is not just the commons that stand to suffer from my father's ambitions."

Which explained nothing at all, least of all why Akaba expected him to care. "Hmph. This is how you're trying to convince me? _You people_ have it coming."

"No. You are already going to cooperate, regardless." The smile Reiji wore now matched exactly the televised one, and he remembered that girl's face— that this is his only lead on her right now. "But you will be advised to remember: if we fall, it's the commons that will get crushed beneath. You and your sister are not islands. If you do not reach her and the city falls, you will have nothing."

"I _will_ reach her!" he retorted, sharp and grabbed for the fabric of Reiji's sweater, to heft him back against the wall. Reiji put his hands on his (warm), and Shun felt the numbness in his cold hands anew. He shuddered and dropped his hands, and thought about jamming them back into his own pockets but Akaba hadn't let go. He had the awful feeling that Akaba thought he was amusing but when he looked back up Akaba's smile is gone.

"Of course. But do not forget, Kurosaki. I will only be aiding you because you are aiding me. You are expected to hold up your end of the bargain."

The expectation coupled with unsaid threat but the night was too cold and dark to imagine common monsters— the fear of being incarcerated and marked. Instead he saw only the truth of what was in front of him: Akaba standing as last king of a failed city, the unlit sky-scraper beneath him like the throne of absolutely nothing.

It was sickening and he wouldn't stand by as witness for it.

His night-vision was long-ruined by city light-pollution. But when he stepped forward, there was no tremor to betray his blindness. He walked into the dark with Akaba's hand still refusing to be shook off one of his own. He had consented to work with him, but not to being led. He _would not_ stumble into this deal blindly. "I _will_. Now show me that context you _claim_ is here."

"Very well." Akaba fell into step and marched him deeper into the dark.

\--

This was built without any of the usual platform protections— wind-shields, temperature control, any safeties at all. 

Desperation was a human resource to be strip-mined as much as coal and gold had once been pulled from the earth, and devastated the land and water left behind. A shorter sentence, a higher status-- Akaba Leo had been in a position to make that offer to those at the end of their ropes, and let them hang themselves with it. He'd worked this city to death and given the survivors what they wanted— too indebted to him to ever talk. 

Reiji explained the purpose of the dead city, emptied of everything but industrial leavings in an even voice and Shun couldn't even _not_ believe him. "No one missed the dead?" he spat but already knew the answer before Reiji spoke.

"None that were in a position to do anything."

"Khh." No. The disappearances that spirited Commons off, everyone knew arrests could happen on as flimsy a pretext as security pleased. As for the dead, who would ever miss them? The poor starved every day— if you worked harder, you could get ahead. The losers got what they had coming, that's how it goes. 

These past months, him and Ruri feeling Yuto's absence like a tooth from a jaw-- Ruri missing now. His hands gripped the iron of a railing, and he knew the answer to his next question wasn't going to be one he _wanted_ , it would be an answer that followed him into restless dreams, but he had to know:

"How many of these are operating now?"

\--

In the morning the hammering in his dream morphed into the sound of Akaba's fingers like bullet-hail at the keyboard and he woke not to the fluttering of wings but paper as Akaba placed the stack on his chest. He sat up to grab them reflexively before they fell away disorganized and Reiji didn't wait for him. "These are your new identity papers. Read them and memorize the information, and inform me if anything has been inserted that you find objectionable."

Shun glanced at the top sheet, and his own face glaring back at him on his ID. "Kurosaki Shun, age 16. This is all the _same_."

"It is easier to alter what is already there than to destroy and create your whole identity anew. The majority of the information is." Akaba answered and glanced downward at the papers, confirming he gave Shun the correct set.

Shun nodded as he flipped through— the next page showed him as an only child, Tops born.

\---

The betting and speed, the low-thunder rumble of the D-Wheel engine below was lightning and joy in Shun's veins once, the thrill of bettering himself and Ruri. A place where even the lowest of the low could make himself a name. He'd liked Akaba Reiji then: his brazen profiteering, guile, and the greed in his eyes when he looked at his champion was far better than the pity Shun'd get for taking any charity's handouts. It made his skill a hook, dug into the highest anchor he could find. He thought he could use it, to grab tight to Akaba's ambition and hoist himself up, to begin to climb with his sister out.

But then Yuto vanished, and Ruri thought (correctly, they'd find out later) he'd been caught stealing parts— a job he didn't have the charm to pull off half as well as she did. Shun had felt his insides turn to ice and he'd stopped riding— he and Ruri would find another way.

And she had. 

Now riding duels were business and necessity, he drank in the roar of the crowds and the motor like water from the tap. If he didn't do this, he'd die. He'd be left nothing but a withered husk: without anyone at his side and no goal he'd lose his strength completely. The echo of "KU-RO-SA-KI" crowd chants just meant he was keeping pace— Akaba had seen this meager level of skill from him before.

He gunned the acceleration to take the next turn at his fastest, the perfect focus on balance and traction between his bike and the road sent the thoughts skidding away. He didn't have to give a damn what he thought. He already had his promise of cooperation, he'd perform and get his due.

But the match ended and he'd slowed to a stop but his heart wouldn't stop racing. Despite himself, that speed ignited his blood and his face was lit up too in his sour bright victor's smile. By reflex he looked out into the stands and his eyes met Reiji's, smile still on his face and Reiji returned the gesture, satisfaction looking at home there alongside ambition and something Shun couldn't identify before he looked away. 

The pit. He needed to use the pit. Now was the time to check his bike, before the next match, but the expression didn't wash from his face, like the acid and sweetness of lemonade stinging still at his lips.

\---

After the ring, the open roads were almost dizzying. There was more than just himself, his D-Wheel and deck, the opponent and crowds. There were other people,riders, cars, city lights, Akaba Reiji pressed to his back, billboards and news screens that all crave his attention, a million distractions. After the ring, this is limitless possibility. If he wanted to, he could exit off a ramp and leave the City entirely. Riding here, it was the highest he's ever been. 

"Pass this one by. Take the next exit that presents itself after this, then prepare for a sharp left." Akaba called over the high winds, and Shun glanced up at the signage, to follow the course. This was training for the riding duel, the way the Tops did it— openly. In his pocket the ID dug into his skin, the riding suit tighter than the leather jacket and ragged pants he'd always rode in. More aerodynamic, and better insulated against the wind he felt warm even at this speed and height, even without Akaba's body-heat seeping in through his back, as he spoke again. "Kurosaki. You missed the turn."

Aggravated, Shun shot back, "A Tops duelist would know all the routes, not just the duel lanes!" He was aware he missed the turn. He didn't say anything else to explain himself, as he rode past a checkpoint stop for Commons— not a threat to him anymore. There's a certain vicious satisfaction to be taken from the thought of them stopping him, to find his ID checked out and he had _Akaba Reiji_ with him, that this time they'd grovel and show their underbellies to him for daring to stop one of the most powerful persons in the city. 

They don't stop him, and it was just as well. The brief elation of the fantasy only reminded him-- he _knew_ how Security behaved when they had bad days. It was taken out on the Commons. It made him want to beat them then and there but he didn't dare turn around, steeled self-discipline stamped out the impulse. He thought he could feel Reiji smirking, though of course that was impossible with the helmet on.

He just knew him well enough to guess.

"In that case, would you like to do a proper tour of the city? The building your papers list as your original residence are nearby."

"How many exits?"

"Two." 

This time, he nodded and followed the instructions, to a high-rise with a lobby more opulent than a single one of the hotels Akaba had been paying for, these past few weeks. He was loathe to hesitate in front of Akaba— were they stopping here? No he wasn't asking for _permission_ — and parked the D-Wheel, stepping off it. 

"I see. . . You're a quick study."

"What!?" Shun jerked around, as Akaba removed his helmet and placed back in the seat. 

"Those of the Tops don't hesitate before doing as they please. It's your world to do with as you like." 

The approval stung and Shun growled, " _I didn't do it for your praise!_ " 

"If you had, it wouldn't have been nearly as convincing."

Ignoring the feeling that was always there, the feeling smarted and stung because Reiji always seemed to win, that every action of Shun's was always according to his plans, Shun turned away and marched to the front door— with a keypad he didn't know the code to. "What's the password," he asked, without turning his head from it, and he kept his eyes on Akaba's fingers as he typed in the code, so in the future he wouldn't have to ask.

They kept silent as Reiji followed Shun through the lobby, into the elevator, and Reiji pressed the button for it to take them up to the correct floor. To "his" apartment, and Reiji again punched in the code, (the numerical equivalent of Ruri's birthday, and Shun's fists clenched) before they stepped inside.

Past the doorway and thick dust, it was lit only by the city-light illumination the strewn in from the windows, littering the floor and white sheets like ghosts. The stillness here was haunted, instilled with echoes in a way the tomb-dark city Reiji had led him to before wasn't. Shun ripped a sheet off the table and chairs before the window, but didn't sit down. "Who owns this now?"

"The ownership hasn't changed since you lived here." Reiji sat down at the table, looking over the view, like Shun cleared the seats off for him. 

Shun couldn't still a shudder. This place had stood vacant for a long time, and was _his_ now. He'd never owned it, but it felt like it had been waiting for him this whole time, even though he'd never had it. Did the rich just keep apartments standing empty, to pawn them off on their own pawns, or did this place hold some spot in Reiji's memories, too filled with emotional baggage to return to. He eyed Reiji's face, how he couldn't read one iota of concern or reaction to the apartment, and sighed irritably before taking a seat across him. "Was there a reason it's stood empty this whole time?"

"As the owner, you should know better than anyone the reason someone leaves a place." Was it his imagination, or was that pointed? He might be getting better at reading him, but it could Shun's own thoughts intruding, projecting habitual anger onto him because he couldn't imagine what else could motivate all his machinations.

He was defensive, anyway. "There was no reason to stay," he said flatly, his fingers twitching to tighten around a hand that wasn't there.

"No. It's too large a space for one, isn't it?" The scarf muffles his voice and intonation slightly, but across the table he glances askance at Shun and their eyes meet for only a fraction of a moment before Shun looks away.

"Tch. Did you bring me here to hit on me? Tomorrow is the start of my infiltration of Akaba Leo's ranks— do we have time for this nonsense?!"

"You seemed confident in your mastery of the course. We could return to the roads, if you wish."

If he could ride all night, he would, but he needs rest before tomorrow and he doesn't want to return to another anonymous empty hotel room. He'd always had Yuto, and Ruri, and the silence grates without someone else's breathing to fill it. He shakes his head. "You are my only comrade for now. Take the bed," he says and immediately clarifies, "The couch is good enough for me for tonight."

"You'll be riding tomorrow."

"I've done so in worse conditions! You expect me to believe Akaba Reiji would lower himself to sleeping on the couch?!"

"You place sleeping on the couch a lower activity than running an underground dueling ring and aiding a Commons in sabotaging LDS?" Reiji is definitely amused.

"Fine! It doesn't matter! Sleep where you like!" Shun turns on his heel and takes to the bedroom. He leaves his clothes on the floor when he takes them off, and isn't surprised at all when Akaba follows him, a few minutes behind. "Your typing keeps me up. If you're going to work, do it somewhere else. I'm going to bed."

It's Akaba's win, again. Reiji's breathing is deep and even, after his glasses clink against the uncovered end table. It's nothing like Yuto's, interspersed with snippets of unhappy speech and sounds, or Ruri's occasional shifting through the night. The easy drop into sleep does nothing but illustrate the distance between them, that this was someone who dreams came easy, that he didn't twitch fitfully in the shadow of the day's narrow escapes. He begrudges it less than he thought he would, or maybe he's just gotten used to resentment.

Either way, the sound of someone else's breathing puts Shun to rest quicker than he's slept in weeks. 

\----

Melissa Claire films him shaking hands with Akaba, a formal gesture of thanks to his voucher that had authorized his return to the City's dueling league, after his time "abroad." He doesn't smile for the cameras, but she pats him on the shoulder and tells him his intensity is great, the audience will eat that up. "It's exciting to see a fresh face so focused on the game!" she says with a wink and he jerks away as if stung from compliment. But, thankfully, it's too late for her to notice his recoil and she's already leaving to interview another guest.

His line of sight doesn't follow her. The bright pink of another guest's hair distracts him, the blue jeweled ties holding up a pair of pigtails— He doesn't think, but calls across the room, "Ruri!" 

She doesn't even turn around, deep in conversation with another girl. 

"Ruri!" he tries again, crossing to her. "Ruri!" He takes her shoulders and the look on her one of total non-comprehension. 

"Excuse you, what do you think you're doing?" The black haired girl she was talking to cuts in, grabbing his wrist and he's still too stunned to shake her off.

"Masumi! Don't be rude! This is. . . Oh, this is Kurosaki Shun? The new duelist here tonight!" She's placed him, and that's almost worse. There's dawning realization and recognition, but none of Ruri's affection for him, the sincerity she hid behind her rough edges. His grip loosens, as she apologizes. "I'm sorry, but you must have mistaken me for someone else. I'm Hiiragi Yuzu!" This smile, at least, looks close to the same but he drops his hands as she offers one for a handshake.

"Hiiragi Yuzu. . ." he repeats, shell-shocked. 

"Did you know someone who looked like me? For some reason, that seems to happen a lot." She smiles, a little exasperatedly, and Masumi's scowl besides her confirms it as the truth. "Hey— are you okay? You don't look well."

No, he wouldn't. The bottom of the world had dropped out from underneath him, and staring at the girl whose face _was not at all_ Ruri's, one thought cut through him:

Akaba had known, this whole time. From across the room, he caught a look over Reiji's red framed glasses and thought of breaking them in half and feeding them to him, the glass splitting his tongue in half like a snake's. 

\---

"She wasn't Ruri!" 

Reiji pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, the glint of the lenses hiding his eyes for a moment. Completely opaque. "You wanted the opportunity to reach her. That she was Ruri wasn't guaranteed by our deal. I provided and fulfilled my end of the bargain. Are you going to break yours?"

"Is she in those— that _city_ ," he spits the word, referring the mockery of human convergence that Leo had built and Reiji had shown him that night, "of your Father's!? Did you hide her from me to rope me into this?!"

"No. I had them checked when you agreed. You would have been more cooperative out of gratitude, had I been able to deliver her then. Now, I ask again. Are you going to break your end?"

If he was vehement it would have been easier, but it was a calm weighing question. Of course, it would be a shame to lose an investment after coming this far, but he had accounted for the possibility. "I _should_." He spoke through gritted teeth and a stiff jaw, stilling them so fury didn't pour through instead of words. "What are you planning on doing without me!?"

"Another duelist can be found. Your skills are more than adequate, and you agree with taking down Akaba Leo, but you are not the only Duelist in the city that fulfills this requirement."

"You're going to start sifting through the dregs? _How_ exactly are you planning on finding an unmarked duelist?" Shun scoffed, because they both knew exactly _who_ it was that would hate Akaba Leo the most.

"It can be done." Akaba's expression was shuttered, and Shun turned away to the window, the city lights below. The angle was wrong to him, now. He'd always been looking up.

This was Ruri's angle, sitting atop rooftops when he lost her, waiting for him to come find her again. Finding a safe stop, then staying put. Her iron will to not run off to find him, but to just believe that he'd find her, spot her hair and face no matter the distance and climb up.

He owed her that faith in return. He'd seen the broadcast— the _wrong_ one, with Hiiragi Yuzu, Akaba Reiji's little trap. Ruri would see his face too, the duels that would be broadcast the whole city over. She'd know where to find him.

It was his turn to wait.

He whirled around to face Reiji again, and slammed his hands on the desk. "Did you think I was letting you off the hook that easily? Don't bother! You already have a duelist. Put those resources of yours to a better use," he leaned in, emphasizing, " _find Ruri_."

The surprise caught on Akaba's face is sweeter than any smile he's seen worn there. He hadn't expected him to stay.

\--

They don't fall into routine. 

Their objectives are different but mutually beneficial, and it's almost a natural evolution when they start taking other benefits from their arrangement. It becomes the excuse for Shun to attend events where Akaba wants more than one set of ears— he's the plus one. No one can accuse it of being an act when it _isn't_. It's nothing like love but neither of them can afford that distraction.

On a high balcony away from the dance-floor, as people mill past with bubbly drinks and gossip, Shun's already judged their talk as nothing of worth. It's irrelevant and he isn't missing anything, and Reiji must agree because he's not moving his hands to his shoulders to get Shun to retreat as he leans in and puts his mouth on Reiji's. 

Reiji's eyes don't even have the decency to widen and pretend this is a surprise— he knew this party would be a bust from the start. Possibly even before that, planning this with just this in mind. It's a motivating thought, just as much as it's annoying. Even when he likes Reiji's plans, the constant scheming get to him. 

He drew away for just a moment, to mutter, "You could have just _asked_ ," then pushed Reiji's lips to parting with his tongue, eager irritation pushing past any pretense at tenderness, hasty in a manner that made sure he knows these are Shun's own wants, not just him moving to Akaba's whims. 

But Reiji had whims of his own and his lips shaped a smirk and he slid his tongue across Shun's own and another pair of party-goers hastily decided to pass them by— it's not unexpected, afterall, of the young. Shun smirked too, always too happy to ruin the comfort zones of the people of the Tops. If PDA is a petty way to go about it, he's not above being crude. He deepened the kiss, and braced himself above Reiji— against the window to the entrance. The light inside most likely shut the view of them out, making the view of the glass nothing but a vast dark mirror but for a moment, it didn't matter. It was the thought of it— Kurosaki Shun from the Commons, kissing Akaba Reiji of the Tops, all the rest of them there and completely unaware, not even _noticing_ that they should stop this. 

Throaty laughter vibrated through their mouths and Shun was only vaguely surprised to realize it's not just his own. He pressed Reiji's tongue up into his teeth, a warning. He never knew what was going through Akaba's head and he wanted to be taken seriously. Akaba broke off in reaction, moving his head down away to Shun's neck, pulling down at his signature red bandana (that was so expected of him that no matter the dress code it was understood that he would wear it, regardless). 

Akaba's scarf had been swapped for a high collar and tie that hid the marks Shun left, but Shun was sure that the marks he was leaving as he worked his way down his neck would have been identical. A belated payback, or a symbol of equality he had no idea— Reiji wouldn't explain, anyway.

Inside, someone was addressing the floor, and they should really go inside and listen.

They didn't until the speaker was almost done talking, coming in from the outside and doing nothing to hide their dishevelment. 

\--

Hammers ring, never stopping, never ceasing, never _finishing_ as the tower stretches to heaven. The rooftops lining the horizons look like stairs, ever and always going up, higher and higher until even birds suffocate and die, plummeting like stones as their desperate fluttering stops. Humans, nothing _living_ was ever meant to go this high, but at the base of the tower the buildings are all blackened and desiccated, the land below dead, poverty levels rising like flood water— how else are they to escape?

A highway wraps around the tower, and Reiji's arms are wrapped around Shun's waist as they speed onwards— he whispers in his ear, driving him onwards. He can't quite make the words out. It's all babel but he speeds faster as the highway climbs vertical, their replies just missing the mark of being a conversation.

"There is no longer— reas—," his words fade out.

"Where are we going!?"

"—If we fall— must be stopp—," there's more static fritz and Shun can't hear a thing. 

"Where's Yuto; where's Ruri!? Talk sense, Akaba!"

"Uphold your end of the bargain, Kurosaki." This much is clear.

The sun is in his eyes, and he wakes to it bright in his bedroom and beside him Reiji has already left for his day's work, and Shun looks at his own hand, still stretched upward from sleeping gesture.

It isn't the first time he's had that dream, but he's beyond doubt. He stands and dresses in his riding suit— the roads will clear his head.

\---

The LDS lobby is marble, with double statues like Atlas holding the atrium balcony like the weight of the world on his back. Reiji's pockets are heavy with hard-copies of data stolen from his father's files, the rest uploaded to show the world— sirens from Duel Chasers scream behind them as Shun crashes through the glass doors with his bike, shattering them. He drives his D-Wheel straight into the elevator, and Akaba jams the button for final floor, the highest point in the city as Shun synchros out one of his aces to slow the Chasers.

"We won't have the advantage of surprise." Shun points out the obvious, adrenaline rushing his veins as the elevator did the same up floors.

"No," Reiji agrees, on the back of his bike. "But security below is equally prepared for a confrontation."

"I wasn't suggesting going back down!" Shun bites back. "No. The only way out is up."

The same as it's always been. From the Common slums, onwards— the only way out was ever up. He gets off his bike, and takes Reiji's hand in his own as the platform reaches the final stop.


End file.
